NewsBeat

July 2023 NewsBeat 19 By KEN STURTZ New press up and running for Palladium-Times T he Palladium-Times this spring installed a new printing press, replacing a press in operation since the 1970s. Pennsylvania-based Sample News Group, which owns The Palladium-Times and The Valley News, made the change to expand its printing plant's capabilities in the city of Oswego. "We're excited here at the newspaper, but it's also great for the community that we're investing right here in downtown Oswego and printing our newspaper on site," said Publisher Sharon Lynett. "It's also given us the capability to take on more commercial printing jobs and will help keep printing jobs in New York." Workers began dismantling the old press in April and installing the newer system. That process took several weeks. Work- ers then had to fine-tune the new press. Newspapers were printed in Towanda and Indiana, Pennsylvania, during the transi- tion. The old press had been at The Palla- dium-Times building, at 140 W. First St., since 1974. Fred J. Dubuque had the honor of pressing the button to start that press. Dubuque, who was 84 at the time, had worked for the newspaper for 70 years, starting out on a steam-powered press. Both presses are Goss Community presses that are decades old, but the newly installed one is a significant improvement over its predecessor, said pressroom man- ager Phil Reitz, who had been printing on the old setup for 13 years. The printing plant runs the entire length of the back of The Palladium-Times build- ing. Aside from the press, it includes areas where digital files are processed and trans- ferred to metal press plates, a loading dock and warehouse, and an area for inserting advertisements into newspapers and sort- ing and distributing the newspapers before they're delivered or mailed. The new press can print two sections of a newspaper at a time, while the old one could only print one at a time. It can print twice as fast, up to 25,000 to 30,000 copies an hour when running at full speed, Reitz said. And it's able to print more of the news- paper in color (the old press was designed for black and white and retrofitted to print color) and readers will see more color pag- es in the future. The press doesn't use any computer systems, which means tiny adjustments to make the color just right, for example, have to be done manually. "You have to take a copy, see what you have to move, move it and wait and come back with a new copy," Reitz said. With the new press, images will appear clearer and more focused. Reitz said that's partly because it has an automatic brak- ing system that adjusts the tension on the paper during printing to correct for vari- ations. Before, it had to be done by hand, which was less precise. Operating the new press has been a learning experience for Reitz. He said that after so many years working on the same press, he had to get used to how the new one works. "The old press, I could look at something and know exactly how much I had to adjust something," he said. "But I'm already get- ting used to it." As part of the printing plant upgrades, Sample News Group is installing inserting and labeling machines, which will make production easier and faster. Currently, advertisement inserts are placed in the newspaper by hand and ad- dress labels for newspapers being mailed also have to be added by hand. The improvements will allow the Oswe- go printing plant to begin printing several other newspapers owned by Sample News Group. In March, George "Scoop" Sample, owner of the Sample News Group, bought four publications from the Watertown-based Johnson Newspaper Group. The deal included the Oswego County News (formerly the Oswego County Week- lies) and Oswego Shopper, as well as the Batavia Daily News and Livingston County News in western New York. All four newspapers will soon be printed in Oswego along with The Palladium-Times and The Valley News. Lynett said Sample is also looking to take on commercial printing clients. The Oswego press currently prints The Oswegonian, the weekly student news- paper of SUNY Oswego. Sample News Group is a privately held publishing company based in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and has 17 daily newspapers and more than 35 weekly and specialty magazines. The company owns and operates 30 local websites and six centralized production facilities in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont and New Hampshire. The article is reprinted with the permis- sion of The Palladium-Times.

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